Hydrogen vs. Battery in the long-term operation. A comparative between energy management strategies for hybrid renewable microgrids

The growth of the world’s energy demand over recent decades in relation to energy intensity and demography is clear. At the same time, the use of renewable energy sources is pursued to address decarbonization targets, but the stochasticity of renewable energy systems produces an increasing need for management systems to supply such energy volume while guaranteeing, at the same time, the security and reliability of the microgrids. Locally distributed energy storage systems (ESS) may provide the capacity to temporarily decouple production and demand. In this sense, the most implemented ESS in local energy districts are small–medium-scale electrochemical batteries. However, hydrogen systems are viable for storing larger energy quantities thanks to its intrinsic high mass-energy density. To match generation, demand and storage, energy management systems (EMSs) become crucial. This paper compares two strategies for an energy management system based on hydrogen-priority vs. battery-priority for the operation of a hybrid renewable microgrid. The overall performance of the two mentioned strategies is compared in the long-term operation via a set of evaluation parameters defined by the unmet load, storage efficiency, operating hours and cumulative energy. The results show that the hydrogen-priority strategy allows the microgrid to be led towards island operation because it saves a higher amount of energy, while the battery-priority strategy reduces the energy efficiency in the storage round trip. The main contribution of this work lies in the demonstration that conventional EMS for microgrids’ operation based on battery-priority strategy should turn into hydrogen-priority to keep the reliability and independence of the microgrid in the long-term operation

Renewable energy based microgrid system sizing and energy management for green buildings

The objective of this paper is to model a hybrid power system for buildings, which is technically feasible and economically optimal. With a view to promote renewable energy sources, photovoltaics and wind turbines are integrated with the grid connected building. The system is modeled and the optimal system configuration is estimated with the help of hybrid optimization model for electric renewables (HOMER). The logic is illustrated with a case study based on the practical data of a building located in southern India. This building is associated with 3.4 MWh/day priority load (peak load as 422 kW), as well as 3.3 MWh/day deferrable load (peak load as 500 kW). Sensitivity analysis is performed to deal with uncertainties such as the increase in electricity consumption and grid tariff, environmental changes, etc. From the simulation result, it is observed that the designed system is cost effective and environment friendly, which leads to 6.18 % annual cost savings and reduces CO2 emissions by 38.3 %. Sensitivity results indicate that the system is optimal and adaptable in a certain range of unanticipated variances with respect to best estimated value. Finally, an energy management strategy is developed for the optimal system to ensure reliable power during contingency and disturbances. The green and hybrid power system designed can be adaptable to any critical and large consumers of urban buildings

Optimal Configuration and Sizing of Seaport Microgrids including Renewable Energy and Cold Ironing—The Port of Aalborg Case Study

Microgrids are among the promising green transition technologies that will provide enormous benefits to the seaports to manage major concerns over energy crises, environmental challenges, and economic issues. However, creating a good design for the seaport microgrid is a challenging task, considering different objectives, constraints, and uncertainties involved. To ensure the optimal operation of the system, determining the right microgrid configuration and component size at minimum cost is a vital decision at the design stage. This paper aims to design a hybrid system for a seaport microgrid with optimally sized components. The selected case study is the Port of Aalborg, Denmark. The proposed grid-connected structure consists of renewable energy sources (photovoltaic system and wind turbines), an energy storage system, and cold ironing facilities. The seaport architecture is then optimized by utilizing HOMER to meet the maximum load demand by considering important parameters such as solar global horizontal irradiance, temperature, and wind resources. Finally, the best configuration is analyzed in terms of economic feasibility, energy reliability, and environmental impacts

Optimal integration of wind energy with a renewable based microgrid for industrial applications.

Wind energy in urban environments is a rapidly developing technology influenced by the terrain specifications, local wind characteristics and urban environments such as buildings architecture. The urban terrain is more complex than for open spaces and has a critical influence on wind flow at the studied site. This approach proposes an integration of the surrounding buildings in the studied site and then simulating the wind flow, considering both simple and advanced turbulence models to quantify and simulate the wind flow fields in an urban environment and evaluate the potential wind energy. These simulations are conducted with an accessible computational fluid dynamic tool (Windsim) implementing available commercial wind turbines and performed on a case study at Agder county in the southern part of Norway for an industrial facility specialized in food production. Several simulations were considered and repeated to achieve a convergence after adding the buildings to the domain, which mainly simulates the wind flow patterns, power density, and annual energy production. These simulations will be compared with previous results, which adapted different manipulation techniques applied on the same site where the elevation and roughness data were manipulated to mimic the actual conditions in the studied urban site. The current approach (adding the buildings) showed a reduction in the average wind speed and annual energy production for certain levels with increased turbulence intensity surrounding the buildings. Moreover, a feasibility study is conducted to analyze the techno-economic of the facility's hybrid system, including the planned installation of a wind energy system using commercial software (HOMER). The simulation results indicated that HOMER is conservative in estimating the annual energy production of both wind and solar power systems. Nevertheless, the analysis showed that integrating a wind turbine of 600 kW would significantly reduce the dependence on the grid and transform the facility into a prosumer with more than 1.6 GWh traded with the grid annually. However, the proposed system's net present cost would be 1.43 M USD based on installation, maintenance, and trading with the grid, without including self-consumption, which counts for approximately 1.5 GWh annually. Moreover, the proposed system has a low levelized cost of energy of 0.039$ per kWh, which is slightly above the levelized cost of wind energy but 2 to 4 times less than the installed solar panels

Optimal energy management of a microgrid system

Mestrado de dupla diplomação com École Superieure en Sciences AppliquéesA smart management strategy for the energy ows circulating in microgrids is necessary to economically manage local production and consumption while maintaining the balance between supply and demand. Finding the optimum set-points of the various generators and the best scheduling of the microgrid generators can lead to moderate and judicious use of the powers available in the microgrid. This thesis aims to apply an energy management system based on optimization algorithms to ensure the optimal control of microgrids by taking as main purpose the minimization of the energy costs and reduction of the gas emissions rate responsible for greenhouse gases. Two approaches have been proposed to nd the optimal operating setpoints. The rst one is based on a uni-objective optimization approach in which several energy management systems are implemented for three case studies. This rst approach treats the optimization problem in a uni-objective way where the two functions price and gas emission are treated separately through optimization algorithms. In this approach the used methods are simplex method, particle swarm optimization, genetic algorithm and a hybrid method (LPPSO). The second situation is based on a multiobjective optimization approach that deals with the optimization of the two functions: cost and gas emission simultaneously, the optimization algorithm used for this purpose is Pareto-search. The resulting Pareto optimal points represent di erent scheduling scenarios of the microgrid system.Uma estrat egia de gest~ao inteligente dos uxos de energia que circulam numa microrrede e necess aria para gerir economicamente a produ c~ao e o consumo local, mantendo o equil brio entre a oferta e a procura. Encontrar a melhor programa c~ao dos geradores de microrrede pode levar a uma utiliza c~ao moderada e criteriosa das pot^encias dispon veis na microrrede. Esta tese visa desenvolver um sistema de gest~ao de energia baseado em algoritmos de otimiza c~ao para assegurar o controlo otimo das microrredes, tendo como objetivo principal a minimiza c~ao dos custos energ eticos e a redu c~ao da taxa de emiss~ao de gases respons aveis pelo com efeito de estufa. Foram propostas duas estrat egias para encontrar o escalonamento otimo para funcionamento. A primeira baseia-se numa abordagem de otimiza c~ao uni-objetivo no qual v arios sistemas de gest~ao de energia s~ao implementados para tr^es casos de estudo. Neste caso o problema de otimiza c~ao e baseado na fun c~ao pre co e na fun c~ao emiss~ao de gases. Os m etodos de otimiza c~ao utilizados foram: algoritmo simplex, algoritmos gen eticos, particle swarm optimization e m etodo h brido (LP-PSO). A segunda situa c~ao baseia-se numa abordagem de otimiza c~ao multi-objetivo que trata a otimiza c~ao das duas fun c~oes: custo e emiss~ao de gases em simult^aneo. O algoritmo de otimiza c~ao utilizado para este m foi a Procura de Pareto. Os pontos otimos de Pareto resultantes representam diferentes cen arios de programa c~ao do sistema de microrrede